Islam in Christian Tolerance

ORE Open Research Exeter TITLE ‘Let the Muslim be my Master in Outward Things’. References to Islam in the Promotion of Religious Tolerance in Christian Europe AUTHORS Abdul Haq Compier JOURNAL Al-Islam eGazette DEPOSITED IN ORE 01 February 2010 This version available at http://hdl.handle.net/10036/90953 COPYRIGHT AND REUSE Open Research Exeter makes this work available in accordance with publisher policies. A NOTE ON VERSIONS The version presented here may diﬀer from the published version. If citing, you are advised to consult the published version for pagination, volume/issue and date of publication Abdul Haq Compier ‘Let the Muslim be my Master in Outward Things’ Al-Islam eGazette, January 2010 ‘Let the Muslim be my Master in Outward Things’. References to Islam in the Promotion of Religious Tolerance in Christian Europe ABDUL HAQ COMPIER 1 SUMMARY................................................................................................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................................... 2 TOLERANCE IN ISLAM ................................................................................................................................................ 4 CHRISTIAN REFERENCES TO MUSLIM POLICY .......................................................................................................... 6 From Jerusalem to Constantinople ..................................................................................................................... 6 Eastern Europe and early writings on tolerance................................................................................................ 6 France.................................................................................................................................................................... 9 The Netherlands.................................................................................................................................................. 11 Great Britain ....................................................................................................................................................... 14 Towards the Enlightenment ............................................................................................................................... 15 CONCLUSIONS........................................................................................................................................................... 17 Summary Islam presents a policy of religious tolerance, rooted in teachings on the universal nature of man, his free relationship to God, and the divine origins of other religions. The prophet Muhammadsa separated his authority as a religious leader from his position as a governor, creating a religiously diverse society from the very start. This contrasted to the Christian world, where men were regarded to be born in original sin, only to be redeemed by Christ through the one true Church. Ever since the Byzantine Empire, Christian rulers had governed by the motto ‘One State, One Law, One Faith’, leading to horrendous persecutions of heretics. Throughout history, persecuted Christians have noticed the contrast to the tolerance within Islam. When, in the 16th century, persecutions in Europe became unbearable, Christian advocates of tolerance referred to the Ottoman Empire as the model to adopt. The example of the empire was offered in debates on tolerance from Hungary to Germany, France, the Netherlands and Great Britain, up until the 18th century, by tolerance advocates such as Sebastian Castellio, Francis Junius, John Locke and Voltaire. The Netherlands became a junction, adopting not only the Ottoman model of religious diversity, but also receiving political and military support from Ottoman sultans. 1 B.A., MSc., editor of Al-Islaam, magazine of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, the Netherlands. I wish to thank Gerald MacLean for the opportunity to present an early version of this paper at the conference Britain and the Muslim World, Exeter University, April 17-19, 2009. 1 Abdul Haq Compier ‘Let the Muslim be my Master in Outward Things’ Al-Islam eGazette, January 2010 Old Ottoman mosque in Pécs, Hungary. Introduction Religious tolerance may seem self-evident to the modern reader, who is educated to believe that it is one of the basic values upon which Europe was built. However, up until the 16th century, religious tolerance was not seen anywhere in the Christian world. Ever since the Byzantine Empire, rulers had governed by the motto ‘One Empire, One Law, One Faith’.2 Christian theology saw Christ as the only way to salvation, and the Church as the only way to Christ. Those with other faiths were regarded to be exempted from salvation, and hence criminals, ‘children of Satan’. The Church argued that it was the responsibility of the ruler to cleanse the community of corruption, or he would be held responsible to God. The burning alive of heretics has been pushed into the sphere of Medieval anecdotes, but was very real well into Renaissance times. The Catholic inability to rule tolerantly resulted in the transformation of what was once the paradise of Al-Andalus into the site of one the most horrendous events of ethnic and religious cleansing in history. 3 Among Christians in Western Europe, this policy became the more and more painful as more people joined reformist movements in the 15th to 16th centuries. Despite the horror experienced by the persecutions, it took Christians great effort to understand the possibility of 2 Alexander A. Vasiliev, History of the Byzantine Empire, 324-1453, vol. 1. Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press 1952; p. 148 3 See Gerrit Willem Drost, De morisco’s in de publicaties van Staat en Kerk; een bijdrage tot het historisch discriminatie onderzoek. PhD Dissertation, University of Leiden, 1984 2 Abdul Haq Compier ‘Let the Muslim be my Master in Outward Things’ Al-Islam eGazette, January 2010 a religiously diverse state. Indeed how far off the idea of tolerance was, can be witnessed in the examples of the reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin. Themselves persecuted, they did not defend their case by an appeal to freedom of conscience. Rather, they became more ambitious in proving that indeed theirs was the only true sect. Luther and Calvin themselves supported the execution of heretics.4 This irony is referred to by one of the few voices for universal tolerance in those days, the Dutch mystic Jan Volkertsz Coornhert, who in 1582 concluded that ‘the Catholics do not want freedom of conscience in matters of religion; the Protestants condemn them for it, but they imitate them just the same’.5 Another example of how religious diversity was incomprehensible to the Christian mind even in the 16th century, was the Peace of Augsburg of 1555. In order to save the community from the vast killings that would occur when a new king would adopt Protestantism, the credo ‘cuius regio, eius et religio’ (‘to whom belongs the region, also belongs the religion’) gave the king the right to determine the faith of his nation, while giving subjects who did not want to adopt his religion, the ‘jus emigrandi’, or the ‘right to move’, circumventing execution.6 This shows that even if the problems of religious intolerance were experienced, the solution of religious diversity was not within easy reach, and practising the religion of one’s choice was far from regarded as a fundamental human right. In a previous article, I have attempted to point out traces of Islamic influence in various factors contributing to religious tolerance in Europe.7 Islamic mysticism influenced the development of spiritualist movements in Christianity, which were essential in understanding the exclusive relationship of the conscience to God.8 The Islamic teaching of all religions containing divine truth likely influenced the ‘Docta Ignorantia’ movement, with authors like Raymond Lull, John of Segovia, Nicolas Cusanus and Guillome Postel.9 In the field of scholarship and intellectualism, Islam had brought the movements of Humanism and Scholasticism, including notions of tolerance such as academic freedom.10 Islamic law, 4 John Calvin collaborated with the Spanish Inquisition to execute Michael Servet for the denial of the Trinity. Auguste Hollard, Michel Servet et Jean Calvin, Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, (6) 1945, 171-209. For the intolerance of Martin Luther, see Johannes Janssen, History of the German People From the Close of the Middle Ages, vol. X. St. Louis: B. Herder, 1910; pp. 222-223. 5 Dirck Volkertsz Coornhert, Synode over Gewetensvrijheid. Amsterdam University Press 2008; p. 237 6 Henry J. Cohn, Government in Reformation Europe, 1520-1560. London: McMillan 1971; p. 155 7 ‘De ingrediënten van godsdienstvrijheid’. Al-Islaam (The Hague: Mobarak Mosque) 2007:9, pp. 5-21. The different factors contributing to the development of religious tolerance are summed up in the introduction to Coornhert by Hendrik Bonger, in De motivering van de godsdienstvrijheid bij Dirck Volkertsz Coornhert. Van Loghum, Arnhem 1954. 8 Influences of Islam have been described on St. Francis of Assisi, Meister Eckhart, St. Theresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross and Ignatius of Loyola, all of whom became important in Christian mysticism. On St. Francis, see Idries Shah, The Sufis, New York: Doubleday & Co. 1964; pp. 228-230; on St. Theresa: Miguel Asín Palacios,

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